NEW YORK: May 26, 2010Grand Duchess Leonida Georgievna Will Be Buried in SS Peter and Paul Cathedral in St Petersburg

The mother of the Head of the Russian Imperial House of Romanov, Grand Duchess Leonida Georgievna, will be buried in SS Peter and Paul Cathedral in St Petersburg, Russia. The funeral is tentatively scheduled for June 3, 2010.

The Grand Duchess will be laid to rest in the Grand Ducal crypt, as reported to Interfax on Tuesday by Mr Aleksandr Zakatov, Director of the Chancery of the House of Romanovs.

It is expected that the body of the Grand Duchess will be brought via Aeroflot from Madrid on June 1. Her surviving daughter, Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna and her grandson, His Imperial Highness Grand Duke Georgii Mikhailovich, will accompany the body of the late Grand Duchess.

The funeral will be held at Kazan Cathedral, and the burial will take place in Petropavlovsky Fortress.

The Imperial Family does not look favorably on pompous funerals. It is important that the funeral be held in strict accordance with the rules of the Russian Orthodox Church and the traditions of the Romanov Dynasty,” said Mr Zakatov.

It is not yet known who will represent the government and the European royal dynasties at the funeral.

Grand Duchess Leonida Georgievna died in Madrid on the night of Monday, May 24, at age 96. She was the widow of His Imperial Highness Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich Romanov, the great-grandson of Emperor Alexander II.

According to Mr Zakatov, Grand Duchess Leonida Georgievna’s health took a turn for the worse during the prior week.
She was born on October 6, 1914, in Tiflis (now Tbilisi). Her parents were the Head of the Georgian Royal House of Bagration, Prince Georgy Alexandrovich Bagration-Mukhransky, and Princess Elena Sigizmundovna Bagration-Mukhranskaya (nee Novina-Zlotnitskaya).

On August 13, 1948, Leonida Georgievna married the Head of the Russian Imperial House, Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich Romanov, in the Church of St Gerasim in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The Head of the Russian Imperial House, Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich, died in 1992. Grand Duchess Leonida Georgievna was the last member of the Russian Imperial House born before the 1917 Revolution.